


I craft my words to fit your head

by cupcakeb



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: F/M, One Shot Collection, all kinds of prompts/tropes/etc, idk I write a lot of ValRebe shit and I wanted to keep it in one place, summaries and ratings and whatnot are in the indiv. chapter notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: #3: Getting stuck driving out of town in the snow with the girl he has a crush on isn't ideal, but at least she's just broken up with her boyfriend, so they have something to talk about.// A collection of one-shots
Relationships: Rebeca "Rebe" de Bormujo Ávalos/Valerio Montesinos Hendrich
Comments: 26
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve been sort of inching towards something all summer. Or, well, she thinks they have. She still can’t put her finger on that; on what exactly this is. All she knows is she likes him a lot because he’s funny, and surprisingly insightful once you get through the layers of bullshit. He’s never too busy for her, always up for whatever random shit she comes up with, and she really likes that.
> 
> OR: Val/Rebe - canon divergence, post-s3 timeline. Rated M.

Valerio gets an apartment downtown the summer after their non-graduation, and when she goes back to school in the fall, he doesn’t. She’d ask why, but he’s never seemed like someone who’s particularly interested in academics, so he’s probably got the right idea.  
  
He offers up an explanation anyway.  
  
“Why would I spend more time around insufferable rich kids than I need to?”  
  
The way he says it makes her laugh, and she nudges him with her chin when she leans towards him on the couch they’re sitting on.  
  
“Are you saying I’m just another rich kid to you now?”  
  
She’s never really seen anyone grin with the sort of fervor he does. She’s never bothered to catalog anyone’s grin to this extent, either, but his is special — it’s like he grins with his whole body, like he exudes happiness when he flashes those pearly whites at people. This one is no different.  
  
“You’re the worst,” he teases. “But you know that.”  
  
They’ve been sort of inching towards something all summer. Or, well, she thinks they have. She still can’t put her finger on that; on what exactly this is. All she knows is she likes him a lot because he’s funny, and surprisingly insightful once you get through the layers of bullshit. He’s never too busy for her, always up for whatever random shit she comes up with, and she _really_ likes that.  
  
“So just because your sister’s friend randomly hired you to do a job you’re not qualified for, you think you’re too good for me now? That’s cruel, man.”  
  
He giggles, and she finds herself smiling back at him.  
  
**  
Being back at school really fucking sucks. Almost everyone’s younger than her, except for her classmates who also ended up coming back for another year. She can barely stand any of them.  
  
Omar is probably her favorite, even if she thinks it’s kind of shady how Azucena gave him a scholarship despite his very lacking academic record. But they’ve always vibed well and it makes her feel like she has at least one friend in class, so whatever. Omar is a welcome addition, and she’s always been partial to Ander. Guzmán is broody and kind of judgmental and way too serious and she’s never really interacted with him, so she mostly sees him in group settings. And then there’s Samu, who can honestly just go fuck himself. Don’t even get her started.  


“Let’s get drinks,” Omar tells her on the way out of school, which is a ridiculous thing to say at four in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Two weeks at this school and he’s already adjusted to the absurd school culture around binge drinking. She grins at him. “Ander, wanna hit up Happy Hour at Julio’s?” 

Of course. Julio is the weird bar owner they befriended over the summer — he runs a shitty dive bar in one of the sketchier parts of downtown Madrid, but he’s sixty-seven and fucking hilarious, so they keep coming back even though he doesn’t know how to mix a proper cocktail. 

“Can I invite Val?” 

She really doesn’t appreciate how the boys smirk at her all knowingly. Fuck them. So what if she got too drunk one night a few weeks ago and went on a little rant about how pretty Valerio’s face is. Maybe she has a little bit of a crush. 

Ander winks at her. “Can’t you two go one day without seeing each other?”

She could tell them to fuck off, but that would probably make the teasing worse, so she shrugs and rolls her eyes at them instead. 

“If I leave him alone too much he’ll turn to coke, probably followed by heroin and then finally a crack overdose and I don’t want that shit to be my fault,” her voice is serious, even though she’s totally joking. She knows he hasn’t touched anything in months. 

Valerio is waiting for them outside the run-down bar when their Uber pulls up, surprisingly dressed down for his standards — somewhat plain beige corduroys, a bizarre purple velour top, and a gold cuff bracelet. 

He hugs her tight in greeting, which she likes, but unlike him she feels a little uncomfortable about their friends just standing next to them witnessing this prolonged hug, so she breaks away from him and smirks. 

All in all, it’s a pretty cool night. 

Three drinks in, she puts an arm around Val and giggles when she brings her hand up to pet his chest. The velour feels really, really nice. 

“You’re soft.”

He glances over at her smiling. “I know.” 

**

“Why aren’t you dating anyone?”

They’re at his place making sushi, which basically means she’s making sushi while he steals pieces off the plate of finished rolls before she’s even done. Teamwork is definitely making the dream work right here. 

His question catches her off guard, especially because he sounds so chill as he asks. They don’t really talk about these things much.  
  
She figures a joke will probably lighten the mood. “Why, do you know anyone for the job?” 

But Val looks serious, just grins at her remark and keeps glancing at her like he’s expecting her to actually answer his question.

“Dating fucking sucks,” she says while carefully removing the pit from an avocado. Someday she’s gonna lose a finger doing this. “And who the fuck should I date anyway?”

He’s sat across from her, so she glances up at him in time to see a somewhat calculating expression flicker in his eyes. That’s pretty random; she has no clue why her love life or lack thereof would be of any concern to him. 

“Yeah,” he replies, chewing on a piece of nori while he talks. “That’s probably true.”  


She nods and grins at him. “No hot eligible bachelors in sight.” 

That gets a reaction out of him. He gets up and takes his shirt off, then flexes his abs and goes to stand right next to her, urging her to touch him. She does; they’re nice abs. 

“I’m definitely eligible,” he runs a hand down his own chest. “Right?” 

She nods. “If I get desperate enough to fuck one of my friends, I’ll definitely give you a call.” 

“Can’t wait,” he agrees. They’re joking around, and he’s already pulling his shirt back on, but she still feels her mouth go a little dry when she hears his response. 

She wonders if he wants to kiss her as much as she wants to kiss him right now. 

**

When it’s November and they still haven’t even kissed, Rebe starts to get frustrated. Sexually frustrated — although she really doesn’t buy that going a couple of months (okay, _eight_ ) without sex will kill her — but emotionally frustrated, too. It’s getting annoying, this whole dancing around each other thing. 

Their mutual friends seem to think so too. They spend a lot of time with Ander and Omar, and it always feels like a double date, but without any of the awkwardness. They’re just comfortable around each other and rarely feel the need to invite Guzmán and Samuel along when they make plans. 

“Will you please just tell him you want to jump his bones,” Omar whispers when Valerio gets up to use the bathroom, leaving the three of them alone at his kitchen table with Monopoly all set up. “I seriously can’t take this for much longer.” 

She groans; she can’t take this much longer either. 

“Yeah, Rebe, just do it for our sake,” Ander agrees and she rolls her eyes. 

“Every time I think he might try something, he ends up chickening out,” she says. “Maybe he’s just not interested.”

Ander and Omar crack up the second she finishes that thought. They’re still laughing loudly when Valerio walks over and sits down next to Rebe again, playing with a strand of her hair as he grins. 

“What’s up with them?” 

“Nothing,” Omar calms down enough to speak. “Hey Valerio, are you seeing anyone?” 

Val’s hand has moved down her arm and onto her thigh, playing with one of the bigger rips in her jeans. 

“I’m seeing all of you right now,” he shrugs. 

“No, like... are you seeing anyone _naked_?”

Jesus, so much for being subtle. She kind of wants to kick Omar in the shin for that question, but that would probably be a little too obvious, so she just leans towards Val a little and tries to focus on the conversation at hand. 

He shakes his head, sending his curls flying. “Dating fucking sucks.” 

See, this she can get on board with. “Agreed,” she says, then holds up her hand for a high five and smiles when he slaps it with his own. 

Ander and Omar look less than amused, but that’s what they get for trying to meddle. She doesn’t need their help to get friend-zoned; she can do that all by herself. 

**  
  
His birthday falls on a Saturday, so he invites her and ‘ _everyone else who feels like joining_ ’ to go play paintball, which she thinks sounds like a horrible idea in the middle of November but it’s his birthday so she doesn’t get to have an opinion.  
  
The paintball range is about an hour outside of the city, and there was no place to get food anywhere so she’s literally starving when they’re finally all back in the car on the way to Madrid after several hours of shooting at each other — she’s definitely gonna have bruises tomorrow.  
  
They drop Samu and Guzmán off first, and she’s half asleep with her head on Val’s shoulder when Ander and Omar say goodbye and get out the car. All she manages is a weak wave. God, she needs food right now if she wants to have any chance at not just falling asleep.  
  
“Wanna pick up pizza and come back to my place?”  
  
Fuck yeah. Yes, she does. Pizza sounds amazing right now, and she’s always up for one on one time with Val. It’s not like she minds spending time with him when their other friends are around, but it’s different when it’s just the two of them. He’s a lot more willing to be quiet and serious and drop the whole casual class clown act when they’re alone.  
  
She falls asleep wearing his shirt, in his bed, surrounded by the smell of him because he’s got an arm draped loosely around her and really, she could get used to this.  
  
**

He’s a good friend to her. That part is still surprising to her sometimes because on the surface he doesn’t _seem_ like he’d be this loyal and caring and amazing. It’s what makes her think taking the risk and figuring out if he wants to maybe see _her_ naked sometimes isn’t worth it. 

End of November is always a really shitty time for her. It’s when the weather gets gloomy and increasingly colder, so she’d probably be dealing with seasonal depression anyway, and it’s when her father died, so. It’s a fun time of year. 

When she starts to feel herself check out more and more, she seeks out his company and invites herself over to his place, spends even more time there than she usually does — she basically moves in. She’s got a toothbrush there and everything.  
  
(His idea —- “Rebe, don’t take this the wrong way but _please_ stop borrowing my toothbrush.”) 

“Sorry if I seem, like, sad or whatever,” she says one evening, taking a swig straight from the bottle of whiskey they’re sharing. It’s a school night and she normally wouldn’t be drinking this much but... “My father died six years ago today.”

“Oh shit,” is all he says in response. He’s not always great with words, but she appreciates how he scoots closer to her on the living room carpet they’re inexplicably sat on and puts an arm around her. She lets herself melt into him a little and drops her head on his shoulder. 

He seems perfectly happy to just sit here and run his fingers through her hair, which is preferable to having to actually talk about this. None of her other friends know and she thinks that’s probably for the best — she hates being pitied. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She really doesn’t. “Not unless you force me to,” she says, smiling a little as she plays with his hand. “Just know I do not consent.” 

That makes him snort out a laugh and she’s glad. She doesn’t want the atmosphere to be all serious and tense, not when his laugh is one of her favorite sounds in the world. 

“You know I’m big on consent.” 

And fuck it, she’s having a terrible day, she probably gets to be impulsive and potentially ruin their friendship, right? It’s not like she hasn’t been overthinking how to finally make a move on him for the better half of three months. She moves slightly so her head is no longer resting on his shoulder, smiles at the curious look on his face and leans in to kiss him. 

They’ve kissed before, of course, but those kisses were always frenzied and heated and in club bathrooms or on the dance floor. This is different — there’s no rush. He kisses her back carefully, like he doesn’t want to be pushy, and she moans into his mouth when he finally opens up for her. Yeah, definitely the best idea she had today. 

She pushes him away enough to climb into his lap, then leans in for another kiss and tries not to smile into it when his hands go out to grab her hips. His hands are huge and she loves how tiny she feels when they’re on her. 

This goes on for a while, long enough for her lips to start feeling a little chapped, and she honestly couldn’t care less. Her hands go out to find his zipper, instantly pulling it down and he tightens his grip on her hips like a warning — that’s hot. 

The way he pulls back slightly and holds her in place when she tries to chase his lips? Less hot. Very, very hot actually, but she has a feeling he’s about to tell her this can’t happen, so she’s bracing for the worst-case scenario. 

“This is a bad idea,” he says, and she feels her heart sink. She knows she must be frowning because he instantly runs a hand over her cheek to comfort her. “Not... Rebe, you know I like you a lot.” 

Oh god. He _likes_ her a lot? This is humiliating. She’s such an idiot — why did she think he was actually into her? There are a million thoughts running through her head at once, but she stays quiet. He doesn’t need to know how embarrassed she feels. 

“I should go,” she says, then tries to move out of his lap but he’s stupidly strong and won’t let her. “Val,” she whines in protest.  
  
All he does is shake his head as he runs his hands up and down her sides teasingly.

“You’re not going anywhere like this.”  
  
Like this? Like what?! She really wants to know what the hell he’s alluding to, but she’s a little dazed from the kiss and the weird shit he said after and— it’s a lot, so she doesn’t ask.

Instead of unhanding her as she expected, he leans in to kiss her again, which is really just confusing. It’s a nice kiss, so she predictably loses herself in it, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t at least a little lost. Would be great if he could, like, use his words to tell her what the fuck he’s angling for here. 

“Sleep over,” he says after a while. His eyes are soft and he looks kind of tired, which she can relate to, so she finds herself nodding.  
  
It’s not like she doesn’t sleep here all the time anyway.  


They’re in bed when he pulls her close and starts playing with the hem of her (his) shirt, making her squirm a little. He moves on top of her, splays a hand on her stomach and kisses her, and she has no idea what the hell he’s going for here but she can’t possibly be expected to push him away, right? This feels way too fucking good. 

“Val, fuck,” she breathes out when he circles his fingers around her nipple, her body arching into his hand. “Please.”

His usual blissed-out grin is replaced by a smirk. The hand that isn’t busy playing with her breast is moving in a random pattern right below her belly button, and if he just moved it a little lower he’d… Well, she’d appreciate that very much. 

“Please _what_ , Rebe?” 

It’s amusing to listen to him act like he’s got the upper hand in this. He’ll learn soon enough that she has absolutely zero qualms about asking for things in bed. She’ll say literally anything if that means he’ll touch her.  
  
“Fucking touch me, dumbass,” she commands, then grabs his hand and moves it down her body. Maybe he’s one of those visual learners who need to be shown, not told.  
  
He has the audacity to laugh at her bossy request, and she’s about to tell him to stop laughing when he pushes two fingers into her to shut her up. 

When she feels him slow down his movements, she pulls on his hair and groans. “Do _not_ stop.”  
  
All he does is still his fingers completely, and then he’s moving down her body, mouthing at her breast through her shirt, then at her stomach when he pushes the fabric up on his way down. She’s literally going to kill him if he doesn’t make her come soon.  
  
He pulls off her underwear and she can feel his breath on her. He better not keep fucking teasing her or she will have to start bringing out the big guns.  
  
“Val, come on,” she urges. “Please.”  
  
“Tell me what you want,” He says, except then he seemingly decides he doesn’t want to wait because he utters, “Fuck it,” then leans forward and licks a stripe up her center, moaning against her. _Shit._ She pushes her hand into his hair to have something to hold onto. “Talk.”  
  
“No,” she moans. He can’t seriously be expecting her to talk right now, right? All he does is pull away and grin up at her. “Oh, fuck you,” she tells him while she pushes his face back towards her forcefully. “Please, Val, I swear to god I’ll—“  
  
He sucks on her clit right as he starts moving his fingers inside her and she hears herself scream. “Oh my god, you’re good at that,” she says and he hums against her which feels absolutely incredible.  
  
She tries to stay coherent and in the moment, but with the way he sets a steady pace and doesn’t let up for even a second, she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. Before she knows it, she feels herself about to tumble over the edge, tightens her grip on his hair and cries out when he puts a hand on her stomach to push her flat against the mattress.  
  
Then he flicks his tongue hard against her, making her roll her hips up into his mouth and she pulls on his curls, then says, “Like that, fuck, Val.”  
  
It doesn’t take more than two or maybe three more strokes of his fingers and his tongue and then she’s coming undone around him, cursing his name as he laps at her until she feels so overstimulated, she pushes him away. 

She feels him move back up the bed, but she’s not ready to open her eyes yet, too busy trying to catch her breath. When she looks over at him, he’s grinning at her smugly, and she’d normally tell him to stop that immediately, but not now. He absolutely gets to be smug. God, he’s good with his mouth.  
  
“Stop fucking staring,” she finally says, and he doesn’t, of course. “What the fuck was that for?”  
  
He shrugs. It’s kind of funny to think about how both of them are still wearing clothes. Come to think of it, she really doesn’t get the point, so she sits up against the pillows (she never really got why he has _this_ many pillows) and pulls the huge red shirt of his she likes to wear to sleep over her head. Yeah, she’ll give him something to stare at.  
  
Oh, he’s definitely staring now. She seizes the opportunity and climbs into his lap to grind down against him. His intake of breath is sharp, and this time it’s him saying her name like a warning.  
  
He’s only wearing a pair of briefs, and she pushes them down enough to be able to touch him properly, then wraps her hand around him, squeezing lightly. He hisses.  
  
“Talk,” she mocks, and he pulls her closer by the neck so he can kiss her briefly, then pulls away.  
  
“Rebe,” he says, clearly trying hard not to seem affected. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”  
  
Well, this is not the sort of talking she expected, but okay. She runs a hand down his chest, trails her eyes over him, and tries hard not to just stop having this conversation altogether because he looks like a fucking snack and she’s _hungry_.  
  
“Why the fuck would this not be a good idea?”  


“You seemed upset earlier, so I don’t want to—“  
  
Jesus, is this why he was being weird earlier? Fucking dumbass.  
  
“Oh my god, will you just, like, stop trying to be a good guy? I can be in a shitty mood _and_ fuck you all in one day; they’re not mutually exclusive.”  
  
He laughs and did she mention she loves the sound of his laugh? The way they’re pressed together means she can feel the deep rumble of it in his chest, and she thinks that feels way more intimate than it has any right to.  
  
He pulls her closer, then says, “If you say so.”  
  
It’s the last coherent thing either of them says for a while.  
  
**  
  
She’s late for school the next day because _someone_ felt the need to get in the shower with her, and Omar gives her a weird look when she slides into her seat next to him.  
  
“Didn’t you wear that outfit yesterday,” he whispers, and she silently scolds him for it, motioning towards the front of the class where their history teacher is explaining something.  
  
Thankfully Dani (yes, she feels weird about calling her teacher that too, but it’s his name) is very no-nonsense about talking in class, so Omar can’t say anything until later. She’s got French next and Omar doesn’t, so she takes off as soon as the bell rings in hopes of avoiding the questions he’s bound to have for her.  
  
But she can only avoid his probing for so long. He tracks her down at lunch, glances at the pizza on her lunch tray, and raises an eyebrow. Yeah, she usually eats really healthy or whatever, but she didn’t have time for breakfast so she’s hungry. Salad just won't do.  
  
“Why were you late this morning?”  
  
She’s probably just paranoid but… Why does he look like he knows what happened last night? Is he psychic?  
  
Taking a bite of her pizza, she mumbles, “Traffic,” and doesn’t meet his eyes.  
  
“You live ten minutes away from campus.”  
  
Ugh, here we go. “I slept at Val’s last night,” which she does, like, all the time, so that definitely isn’t a reason for him to get suspicious.  
  
“Ah, so that’s why you didn’t text me back until two in the morning,” he concludes, which is Sherlock-esque levels of deductive reasoning. She replied to the meme he sent her right before she fell asleep, which she kind of regrets now — Omar knows she doesn’t usually stay up that late.  
  
“Where’s Ander,” she asks, trying to change the subject.  
  
“Biology exam retake,” he says dismissively and turns to grin at her. “Why are you trying to change the subject?”  
  
All she does in response is grin back at him. Fine, maybe she’ll just tell him; it’ll probably be nice to talk about it. She smirks and waits for him to gasp. (He does.)  
  
“Holy shit, really?”  
  
“Yup,” she says, popping the P. “Please don’t make this into a big deal. All we did was fuck,” she grins at the not-so-distant memory, then adds, “Twice.”  
  
“Oh my god, finally,” he holds his hand up for a fist bump and she begrudgingly bumps it with hers. “Ander is gonna be so pissed I found out first!”  
  
She scarves down the rest of her slice of pizza, then rolls her eyes at him. “Please don’t be weird about this, it doesn't mean anything.”  
  
The look he gives her is annoying; it's like he can see right through her defense mechanism of writing this off as a hookup. (Hey, at least she’s aware of her shit, okay? She knows she’s got issues.)  
  
“Rebe, you’ve literally been in love with him for months, there’s no way this doesn't mean anything.”  
  
Yeah, maybe. On the off chance that Val might actually be interested in pursuing an actual relationship with her, this might mean something. Who knows at this point.  
  
Shit, maybe she should at least try to deny being in love with him; otherwise, Omar will run with that theory and she’ll never hear the end of it. But he’s her friend, and it’s not _not_ true so…  
  
She picks up the next slice of pizza and focuses on her food instead of this weird conversation she doesn’t want to be having.  
  
Omar has other plans.  
  
“How was it? Is he hung?”  
  
She groans, picks a piece of pepperoni off her pizza and throws it at him.  
  
“Did you just throw pork at a devout, practicing Muslim to shut him up? Wow,” he teases, and she stifles a laugh. There’s literally a hot dog on his lunch tray; he’s so full of shit. “That’s a hate crime.”  
  
“Right, if you’re a devout Muslim, I’m a fucking virgin,” she laughs.  
  
“Not after last night, you’re not.”  
  
She probably should’ve anticipated that joke.  
  
**  
  
The transition from hanging out with Valerio all the time to hanging out and sleeping with Valerio all the time is honestly way too fucking easy to make. It takes absolutely zero effort. 

She’d been worried he only fucked her ‘cause he took pity on her that first time because of the whole dead dad thing — yes, she’s definitely going to hell for thinking about it like that — but when she knocks on his door unannounced two days later, he literally pulls her inside by the hand and presses her against the wall next to the door so he can kiss her, which she thinks is probably a good sign.  
  
Fuck, she loves him. She loves fucking him, too, but she’s also just really, stupidly in love with him. This whole head over heels thing is so unlike her and she hates it, hates how she literally feels herself swoon a little when he so much as smiles at her. She needs to get a fucking grip. There’s no way she’s supposed to have this many feelings for him, especially when they aren’t even _dating_.  
  
They text all the time, and she starts spending so many nights at his place that she actually has to tell her mother she’s ‘seeing someone’, which is more than she’s ever told Sandra about any other fling she had, so. She’s in over her head.  
  
She has exams in early December, which is stressful and really fucking annoying, and she has to actually study this weekend so she walks him home after they have dinner and drinks near his place on a Friday night, fully intending to get in a taxi and sleep in her own bed tonight.  
  
And she would, too, except, “Do you want to come up for a drink?”  


She lets out a deep breath. Fuck. She does. Of course she wants to come up for a drink, and she knows he knows exactly what he’s doing.  
  
“I hate you,” she tells him the next morning after she’s finally dragged herself out of bed and into the shower around eleven, stepping into a pair of leggings and slipping on a hoodie that she left at his place for situations like this one.  
  
Valerio is still naked, and still in bed, though he at least has the decency to keep the sheets over his lower body to cover himself. “Yeah, you really seemed to hate me last night.”  
  
Cocky bastard. She hates how she can’t even jokingly insult his sexual prowess because it would feel too far-fetched — their sex life is kind of ridiculously amazing.  
  
When she’s finally dressed and grabs her phone from the nightstand, he sighs, says, “I’ll walk you out,” and gets up. The sheet drops from his waist, and she licks her lips a little.  
  
Well… Maybe she could be persuaded to stay a little longer. What difference does an hour make, right?  
  
She aces her chem exam on Monday despite the very limited time she spent studying this past weekend and when she tells him that, he gets all smug with her. He’s tackled her to the floor in the living room and is currently absolutely torturing her with tickles.  
  
“Admit it,” he taunts. “Say it and I’ll stop.”  
  
“No way. There is no way I aced my chemistry exam because you have a magic dick.”  
  
He bursts out laughing, and she leans up to kiss him.  
  
Come to think of it... “I might need a reminder of those magical powers.”  
  
And yeah, okay. It’s still pretty fucking magical.  
  
**  
  
Lu and Nadia are home for Christmas, so they all gather for a little Christmas party at Val’s place.  
  
She expects it to be weird, honestly. She and Lu don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to getting along. That’s why she’s so surprised when Lu hugs her tight as she walks through the door and instantly starts talking at about a mile a minute. She glances at Val, who is watching their exchange from across the room with an amused grin on his face as he drinks beer with Samu and Guzmán.  
  
At the end of the night, everyone’s fairly drunk, and when Nadia and Guzmán finally leave (together…), Rebeka takes their glasses to the kitchen and hip checks Val when he predictably follows her.  
  
Lu is staying with him while she’s in town, and Rebe doesn’t want to make anything weird by sleeping over, so she’s fully expecting to leave after cleaning up.  
  
“Tonight was fun,” he says, nosing at her neck as he stands behind her.  
  
She nods. “Fucking bizarre, too, seeing everyone just get along… Almost like we’re adults or something.”  
  
He turns her around in his arms and leans down to kiss her, which she’s really, really glad about. She’s been itching to do that all night, but she didn’t want to make anything weird for him or their friends by engaging in obnoxious PDA — they’re not even a couple, and no one but Ander and Omar knows they’re hooking up.  
  
“Let’s go to bed,” he says when he finally pulls away, and she must look surprised enough for it to show on her face. “What?”  
  
“I just thought… Wouldn’t it be weird, with Lu sleeping on the couch?”  
  
All he does is shrug, which probably means he had some sort of conversation with his sister about them. Or he didn’t and he’s just more uncaring about what the only one of his family members he’s still in touch with might think about his choice of sexual partner.  
  
Lu is in the bathroom when they make their way to Valerio’s bedroom, so at least she gets to skip out on awkwardly having to say goodnight to her. This whole situation is weird, she’s pretty sure no one can blame her for avoiding Lu.  
  
It’s not that she doesn’t want to have sex with Valerio right now; she pretty much always wants him, obviously. But she feels a little awkward about doing it while his sister is within earshot. They’re both loud, and because he lives alone they’ve never really had to try to be quiet, except for that one time at a party at Ander’s place which… did not end well.  


So she’d much rather not take the risk, which is why she pushes him away when he spoons her and runs a hand up her stomach under her shirt. It may seem like an innocent gesture, but this is his signature move — he’ll start by just grabbing her shirt to pull her closer, and then one of his hands will drift up her body while the other moves lower and in no time she’ll go from “Oh, it’s cute that he wants to spoon” to begging him to fuck her already.  
  
She turns around in his arms, then nudges him to get on his back and pulls her leg up so it’s resting over his hip. Her head is on his chest, and this is one of her favorite ways to cuddle.  
  
He hums all sleepy and content, and she feels his lips on her forehead when he pulls her closer. “Everything okay?”  
  
She nods, then closes her eyes, and drifts off.  
  
In the morning, she sneaks out of his arms to tiptoe into the kitchen for coffee and nearly has a fucking heart attack when she finds Lu sat at the breakfast bar with an actual paper newspaper and a green juice.  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ, you scared me,” she says. Lu pulls an unimpressed face, then takes a sip of her juice. (Juice, seriously?)  
  
“So what are we gonna do for the next—“ Lu pauses to look at her Apple watch, “Four hours until Val drags his ass out of bed?”  
  
Rebe shrugs, grabs a mug from the kitchen cabinet and puts one of those fancy pods in Valerio’s coffeemaker. “There’s a new season of Selling Sunset…”  
  
She doesn’t actually expect Lu to be game for that, but in no time they’re on the couch watching this objectively terrible scripted reality mess about LA realtors and their absurd little feuds, bickering about who’s gonna ditch their too-young-for-them fiancé first.  
  
When Valerio finally walks out into the living room a few episodes (hours) later, he looks amused at finding them like that.  
  
“Neither of you made me breakfast?”  
  
The girls both turn to mockingly glare at him.  
  
“You better make us breakfast,” Rebe says, and next to her Lu nods.  
  
“Yeah, you better spoil the shit out of us for making us watch this demented nonsense for the past two hours.”  
  
She has no idea what happened, but she likes this new, chill version of Lu. Maybe they’ll be friends after all.  
  
**  
  
Guzmán has a New Years party, and Rebe convinces Valerio to hide when the countdown starts so they can kiss at midnight without getting weird comments from their friends, most of whom still have no idea they’re… hooking up, or whatever.  
  
He kisses her in the pantry next to Guzmán’s parents’ kitchen, and she giggles when she bumps into a huge sack of potatoes as he pushes her back against a shelf.  
  
“Happy new year,” he whispers when he pulls away, and she’s barely paying attention to all the screaming and hugging she can hear through the wall, because Valerio is smiling at her all wide.  
  
Grabbing onto his neck, she leans closer to him and says, “It better be.”  
  
**  
They’re at a random bar on a Friday night, all sufficiently tipsy after several rounds of drinks, and she thinks she’s gonna go insane. Val has been sitting next to her in the booth they’re sharing all night, his thigh pressed against hers, his arm around her shoulder, and honestly, it’s kind of really fucking cruel that she can’t just make out with him on the spot. 

She wouldn’t do that even if they were actually dating, because PDA is obnoxious, but it frustrates the hell out of her that they’ve been doing this for almost two months and still haven’t even talked about defining what this thing between them is. It’s not that she needs a label to feel content but the fact that he hasn’t brought it up has to be a bad sign, right? 

“I’ll get the next round,” she mutters, and Ander and Omar jump up to join her. She sticks out her tongue at Val when he gives her a look as he realizes she’s leaving him alone with Samu and Guzmán; they’re not exactly his favorite company to keep. He’ll just have to deal.

At the bar, they order their drinks and Omar sighs and rests his head on her shoulder. 

“God, Valerio looks dreamy today,” he says, which is uncalled for. She doesn’t really need to know other people think he looks irresistible too. “You’re the luckiest girl in this entire bar, you know.” 

She groans. Her friends are the fucking worst. 

“I mean, if I were single...” Ander grins at her and she punches his shoulder. She’s so not in the mood for joking about this. Fuck them both; Val is _hers_. 

Thankfully Omar loudly chimes in, “Babe, Rebe’s in love with him, don’t be cruel.” 

Before she can do anything to acknowledge that statement, she grabs two of the drinks in front of her and turns around, only to be greeted by Valerio, who’s standing in front of her with his mouth slightly agape. 

Did he hear— oh my god. Fuck. Fuuuuuck. 

“Do you need some help with those drinks,” Valerio asks, and she shakes her head and stubbornly walks back to their booth, leaving him behind with Ander and Omar. Why the fuck did he come over to help at all? Three people are definitely capable of carrying six fucking drinks. Fucking pushover — always trying too hard to be nice. (Yes, she’s projecting.) 

This is exactly what she’s been dreading all along — that Omar and his stupid fucking snide remarks will get her in trouble.  


She spends the rest of the night pressed to his side, drinking a little more than she normally would to avoid eye contact, and when the boys finally announce it’s time to head home, Valerio grabs her hand and starts walking the two blocks to his apartment without even asking if she’s staying over.  
  
He still hasn’t said anything, so she can’t be sure if she imagined that whole accidentally having one of their mutual friends blurt out she loves him incident, and she’s terrified that he’ll try to talk to her about it while she’s this nervous and tipsy. 

They make easy small talk as they walk, and then busy themselves with their usual bedtime routine once they get back to his place, so things are _weird_ but they could be weirder. 

She finally decides to bite the bullet when they’re in bed, under the covers, with the lights out. It’s easier to talk about this when she’s got her back to him. 

“About what Omar said earlier,” she starts and smiles when he tightens his arm around her. “It’s not like that.” 

Valerio leans forward to kiss her neck and she moans a little. “What, you’re not in love with me?” 

How the fuck is he this casual about all of this? How can he just say that and make it sound normal, not daunting? God.  


She has no idea what to tell him, so she’s glad when he keeps talking instead. 

“I do too, you know,” he murmurs. “Love you.” 

Oh my god. Okay. That’s definitely not how she pictured this conversation going.  


It’s scary to admit it, and she doesn't even really want to, but he's being sort of vulnerable right now and she wants to make sure he knows she appreciates that, so she turns around in his arms to grin at him in the dark.

“Were you ever planning on telling me that?” 

“Nah, I was waiting for our stupid friends to confirm my suspicions first,” he jokes, then leans forward to peck her lips. She’d hate him a little more for the teasing if he wasn’t her favorite fucking person in the world. “I figured there was no reason to rush.”  
  
She thinks that makes sense; that was basically her reasoning for not mentioning feelings, too. She leans forward to kiss him, just because she feels kind of giddy and excited and wants to channel this into somehow touching him.

He breaks away from the kiss to smile. “I feel like this is a good time to mention that Omar sat me down to admit I have feelings for you like a month ago.” 

That little fucking shit disturber. Couldn’t Omar have at least _mentioned_ that info to her? Would’ve been really good to know. 

She groans. “Can they ever just mind their own fucking business?”

“They could, but they’re the only reason we had a conversation about this.”

And yeah, she rolls her eyes, but he’s not wrong. 

“Let’s never tell them anything again,” she grins, and oh, she’s got an idea. “Can we pretend they broke us up with that little stunt tonight? I just wanna see the horrified look on Omar’s face.” 

Valerio laughs, and yeah, maybe they’ve talked enough for a while. 

She kisses him and doesn’t feel the need to make it dirty, knows she’ll have plenty of opportunities to kiss him once they’re both more sober and awake. 

Because he’s in love with her. The novelty of that isn’t gonna wear off anytime soon.


	2. the stars look very different today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leave it to her stupid, clueless roommate to take any of this zodiac shit seriously. 
> 
> Horoscopes are unreliable, manipulative bullshit that pries on vulnerable people who feel too smart for religion but still need something to give them a purpose in life. When Valerio discovers co—star, she's pretty sure he's completely lost his marbles. It kills her to admit this, but Valerio is definitely being fucking stupid. She still thinks his enthusiasm is admirable.
> 
> Rated T.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got weirdly into co—star for like a week last August, and have been making fun of it ever since while some of my friends are still very much convinced it's legit. Definitely would recommend downloading it because it's kind of unintentionally hilarious.

  
Leave it to her stupid, clueless roommate to take any of this zodiac shit seriously.

Rebeka’s 28 and she’s got a fucking degree in clinical psychology — not that she’s really using it, considering how she chickened out like most psych grads and works in the HR department of a large multinational company now, but still — she totally knows none of this is real.  
  
Horoscopes are unreliable, manipulative bullshit that pries on vulnerable people who feel too smart for religion but still need something to give them a purpose in life.

Valerio begs to differ.

When they get back to the apartment after their respective family Christmases, they end up collapsing on the couch, and when she attempts to ask him how Christmas dinner at his dad’s was, he huffs, then groans, and really, that’s basically all the answer she needs.

“My sister did show me this app,” he says a while later, reaching for the phone in his pocket. She’s got her head in his lap, so that mostly means she gets a weird shoulder massage until he finally finds it. “It’s called co—star.”

Rebe snorts. “Sounds like amateur porn.”

(What? It does, and she knows what Lu is like so that’s not entirely implausible.)

“It’s much cooler than that.”

Really? She knows how into amateur porn he is — their bedrooms share a wall — so she sits up, willing to take him seriously if that’s what he wants.

“See? This is my chart,” he says, showing her this big elaborate table, which features random numbers and the names of planets (?) and a couple of zodiac signs she recognizes. He scrolls down further to reveal a whole bunch of text. “This is the part where it psychoanalyzes me and calls me out on my shit.”

Okay, so that’s cool or whatever, but she’s kind of failing to see the point of this. She’ll play along if it'll make him feel better, though. “I’m an Aries. What does this thing say about me?”

Valerio actually rolls his eyes — that’s how she knows he’s been spending too much time with his sister this week — and grins at her like she’s stupid for asking. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Instead of asking him to explain, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and waits for him to elaborate.

“See, every day it gives me a little quote of the day and a list of things I should and shouldn’t do.”

Rebe glances at the screen and grins. His daily quote just says, “Are you feeling erratic?” (which is, like, pretty much him every day) and when she scrolls down and sees the list of Do’s and Don’ts, she allows herself to actually laugh. This whole thing seems so fucking dumb. She wonders what sort of bored intern had to come up with this shit.

“Don’t — _clothes, phone calls, regrets_... Val, are you gonna get in trouble now for wearing clothes?”

He puts an arm around her, then leans forward and laughs against her neck. As dumb as this conversation is, it did result in cuddling, which she’s pretty much always happy about. If she’s gonna have an unreasonably large crush on her hot roommate, the least she can do is hug him a lot.

“You don’t have to follow all of the rules they set out,” he tells her, his voice completely serious. It’s so cute how he can be this into the dumbest things in the universe. “If you don’t vibe with a don’t, it doesn’t apply to you.”

She pulls away to check if he’s fucking with her, then sees he’s actually completely serious about all of this, so she shoves at his chest playfully.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Very Aries of you to say that.”

She hits him in the head with a pillow, then grabs her keys to go pick up the pizza they ordered from the Italian place downstairs and spends the rest of the night wondering what the fuck his little Aries jab even means.

•••

The thing is, in the five years she’s known Valerio, he’s always been the kind of dumbass that commits to really stupid things and just goes after them full steam ahead. Like when he went vegan for a whole year when they first moved in together or his brief stint in wanting to be a slam poet.

(It took a lot out of Rebeka, to fake enthusiasm for his poetry. Words are really, _really_ not his thing. He had great stage presence, and he’s good at laughing at himself, so at least that helped a little.)

Rebeka’s, like, a super supportive friend and roommate or whatever, so she always goes along with the ridiculous causes he decides he will be dedicating his life to. They’ve just never been as dumb as this one.

Zodiac signs are a thing, but anyone actually pretending that they have any influence on their day to day life is fucking stupid. It kills Rebe to admit this, but Valerio is definitely being fucking stupid here. She still thinks his enthusiasm is admirable.

After Christmas, he starts texting her his daily co—star update (he calls it his _daily reading_ ) and always asks her opinion about what this could possibly mean. Biting her tongue about just how absurd all of this is gets harder with every day that passes.

Then he starts actually listening to the app.

He comes home from work one afternoon to find her in the kitchen, making a huge pot of soup to last them for all eternity. Instead of hanging out at the kitchen table while they talk, he comes up right behind her and puts an arm around her waist as he rests his chin on her head. Okay?

The love-struck part of her brain instantly starts thinking about what this could mean, and she pictures having this be the norm from now on — him coming home to her, cuddling up to her, grabbing her. That sounds pretty damn nice but... She has a feeling there’s something else at play here.

“Everything okay?” she asks instead, because rationally speaking, this makes zero sense. Yes, he’s always touchy with her, but this is just too blatant.

“Mhm,” he hums, then hugs her closer to his chest still. “Co—star told me I should focus on casual affection today.”

Maybe she doesn’t hate that silly app as much as she thought.

She can probably use this to her advantage, so she turns around and crosses her arms behind his neck, grinning up at him. “Does that include massages?”

Valerio is a yoga instructor turned amateur massage therapist, and he’s got all these tricks up his sleeve that make her literally want to melt into a puddle of happiness, they make her feel so good. She usually avoids having his hands on her like that just because she knows she’ll embarrass herself by being way, way too into it but today she feels like treating herself.

He chuckles, then runs a finger down her nose and traces the outline of her lips, and really, if this is what he thinks casual affection is, he’s so wrong it hurts. This is _so_ not casual for her. “You only keep me around for one thing, huh?”

Oh god. She refuses to blush under his prompting gaze. He probably didn’t mean to sound like he’s hitting on her. Right? Right.

In the end, she turns away from him to check on the soup and quietly curses herself for not leveraging this further.

The massage is still pretty fucking nice, though, even if she loses the ability to form coherent sentences pretty much immediately. She’s tense and he’s really good with his hands, alright?

A part of her kind of wants to know what he’d do if she just turned around and pushed her naked chest in his face.

Maybe she should ask her horoscope.

•••

“I’ve got a date tonight,” Valerio announces a few days later, a smug little grin on his face.

Her one saving grace in this whole being in love with her roommate thing is that Valerio doesn’t date. He hooks up, and so does she when the opportunity presents itself, but in the five years she’s known him and the three years they’ve lived together, he’s had exactly one girlfriend and that kind of seemed like a marriage of convenience, not love. (And it lasted, like, seven months. That’s fucking nothing.) (Worst seven months of her life, though.)

If he’s got a date tonight, what that means is he’s seeing one of the three people he occasionally hooks up with.

“Let me guess,” she starts, putting her feet up in his lap as she scarfs down another slice of pizza. “That chick from work?”

He shakes his head no. “That was a one-time thing. Pretty sure she’s back with her boyfriend.”

Hmm. Who does that leave... “Not Cayetana, right? Tell me you’re not lame enough to call your ex up just to get laid.”

Val reaches for her ankles and laughs as he applies random pressure to her joints. Why does that feel so good?

“It’s Polo, actually,” he says. Of course; that was her third guess. “Co—star told me I need to get some vitamin D today.”

She only blushes a little bit. He’s such a fucking dumbass.

“Sounds fun,” she tells him and doesn’t mean it one bit.

Fuck. She definitely needs to get laid, too.

•••

She almost forgets about the co—star thing, honestly. It’s never taken up much space in her head because it’s stupid, and aside from the handful of amusing anecdotes that came from it, she stands by her initial assessment of the app — it’s really fucking dumb.

Valerio is on week four of living his life according to what this random AI tells him to do or stop doing, and Rebe is losing her patience with him a little. She gently mentions it over dinner one night and groans when he turns it into a whole thing.

“You should get an account. Let’s see how compatible we are.”

God. Rebe has a pretty good idea of just how _compatible_ they would be in, like, a sexual way. The number of dreams she's had about that over the years have painted a pretty clear picture. She kind of wants to know why he’s never tried to sleep with her in all the time they’ve known each other; it doesn’t seem fair. He hits on _everyone_.

“I don’t need an app for that,” she boasts, then laughs when he runs his foot up her calf under the table. “Come on, Val, you have to admit that stupid app doesn’t know shit.”

Val looks pensive for a moment. “It did tell me I would have trouble with my thoughts and spirituality today. It knew you were gonna try to talk me out of this.”

She loves him, but boy is he naive sometimes. They change the subject and talk about work instead, and reliving the largely irrelevant meeting she had to sit through this morning is making her wish they were still talking about that stupid app; that’s far more interesting.

When they move to the couch, she grabs a bottle of wine and pours them both a generous glass.

“What do I do,” she asks, pulling up the App Store on her phone.

He fucking grins at her all big and bashful, and she wonders if she should just move out. Constantly having to be around him can’t be good for her sanity, even though she definitely doesn’t mind most days. He’s just so fucking pretty sometimes and it irks her.

“Do you know the exact time you were born?”

What the fuck? “Uh, does anyone?”

He shakes his head like he expected nothing else. “Text your mom. You can start making an account in the meantime.”

The shit she does to keep Val entertained is actually ridiculous. She texts her mother, who replies pretty much straight away and asks if she’s _joining a cult_ , so... Great.

The first thing she does is add him as a friend, and when he finally gets around to accepting her friend request later that night, she’s already in bed. It won’t hurt to check how _compatible_ they are.

And really, she didn’t need an app to tell her their ‘passion and sexuality are extremely compatible’ but it’s nice to read. She still doesn’t believe in most of this shit, even though a lot of their compatibility chart (god, just thinking the term makes her feel stupid) looks accurate.

Maybe she’ll just be very selective about the aspects of this silly app she believes in.

She tries and fails not to think about him when she pushes two fingers into herself.

•••

She’s at lunch with Lu, Valerio’s sister and her reluctant grad school friend, when she realizes co—star told her not to eat gluten today. It’s kind of weird to think about because she obviously doesn’t give a shit, but she also now feels weird about eating her pasta. Fucking bizarre.

Lu gives her a look when it takes her a little too long to dig into her food. “Did you just remember carbs are bad for you?”

Rebe rolls her eyes. She feels incredibly stupid about this whole thing, so she just forks some pasta into her mouth and gives Lu a fake smile.

It’s funny, actually. She’s known Lu longer than Val — she’s the one who introduced the two of them — and yet Rebeka prefers male Montesinos company these days. As she watches Lu in her gorgeous little blue dress and cardigan, she can’t help but marvel at how both siblings clearly won the genetic lottery.

“So how’s my brother dearest,” Lu asks a few minutes later. “I swear, I haven’t heard from him since Christmas so he must be hooked on some new pseudo cult again. Am I right?”

“Weren’t you the one who showed him the app?”

Lu laughs. “What, co—star? Is he still using that? I literally showed it to him and said it’s stupid and obviously fake. God.”

That makes Rebeka feel a little better about her own thoughts on the matter. But really, she can’t be too judgmental because she did download it and she’s definitely started thinking about whether going against co—star’s wishes will fuck with her karma.

“Yeah, he’s been using it as an excuse to do dumb shit.”

“Like?”

Does any sister really want to hear about her brother’s sex life? Rebe has her doubts. But since she asked...

“Like, last week co—star said he should _do_ vitamin D and he went and called up Polo.”

Lu makes a face. “Okay, ew. It’s not like he’s ever needed an excuse to be a major slut before.”

That’s actually kind of true. She hasn’t thought about it like that before — Val isn’t usually the kind of person that relies on any sort of crutches to justify his actions. It’s weird how he’s taken to a silly app like this without even questioning whether he might be better off without it.

“He’s not even that much of a slut anymore.”

“Yeah, because he’s practically married to you,” Lu points out and Rebeka groans. She really doesn’t need Lu to encourage her stupid crush further. “He obviously broke up with Cayetana because of you, too. She was always so jealous.”

Rebeka snorts. “Jealous? Of what, how he always makes me do the dishes because he’s afraid of getting his hands too soapy and breaking all the plates? Please.” Remembering that random quirk of his makes her smile fondly, and Lu rolls her eyes at her.

Lu turns her attention to her salad, poking at it absentmindedly for a moment, then shakes her head slowly. “You’re just as bad as him.”

She doesn’t mention it, but co—star did tell her to listen to outside opinions today, and yeah, the fact that she’s remembering that now probably means she’s just as bad as Val.

For once, she doesn’t try to fight Lu to spite her.

•••

February 3rd. The day he literally sneaks into her room around midnight and gets into bed with her without so much as checking if she’s awake.

(She locked her phone and put it down next to her the second she heard the door open. Whatever he’s doing here is probably gonna be less awkward if she pretends to be asleep.)

Well — she’s definitely awake _now_. He wraps an arm around her waist and presses himself closer to her (oh _god_ , he’s not wearing a shirt) and she hums as she pushes back against him.

As far as she knows, he just got home from work. Some stupid after-hours yoga session. He smells like he just got out of the shower, and she stifles a laugh when she realizes he smells like her conditioner. She’s always telling him his hair is long enough to justify buying his own.

“You awake?”

Of course she’s fucking awake. How could she possibly sleep through an event as monumental as having her hot roommate slip into bed with her? He feels so good pressed against her, she’s almost a little nervous about it. Is this real life?

She sounds a little groggy when she says, “Yeah,” in response and she feels him laugh behind her before she hears it.

All he does is pull her even closer and hum contently and Rebeka struggles to breathe for a second. Is she just gonna let this happen? They've obviously fallen asleep together before, but that was usually on the couch, during whatever Netflix show they were binging. This feels a little like uncharted territory.  
  
Also, she usually likes to sleep naked. He’s lucky she’s wearing a shirt and underwear tonight. She feels mortified at the mere idea of him cuddling up to her and suddenly having to realize she isn’t wearing clothes.  
  
“I checked your co—star,” he murmurs a minute later, and she’s too overwhelmed to even understand what that means. “It said you shouldn’t sleep alone tonight.”  
  
He is the dumbest person on this planet. Oh my god, she loves him so much it’s not even funny. What does that say about her?  
  
But actually... “Wait, did you hack my phone?”  
  
“I didn’t have to hack anything, your passcode is literally my birthday.”  
  
She probably shouldn’t have told him that.

•••  
  
In the morning, she wakes up to his warm chest pressed against her back, his legs tangled up with hers, and she literally never wants this to end.  
  
Honestly, if this stupid app is responsible for getting him to spend his night spooning her she’s not complaining. She might even start reluctantly enjoying this whole co—star experience.  
  
She has to get ready for work, but her phone is right next to her and she really has been craving a day off… Maybe she should just text her boss and take a sick day. It’s Friday anyway. Valerio still hasn’t moved behind her, so she carefully reaches for her phone which she left on the other side of the bed last night in her hurry to pretend to be asleep when he came in.  
  
Once she’s come up with a plausible lie (It’s totally flu season, right? In February? Maybe…) she hits send, and then she hears Valerio laughing right next to her ear, his chin sort of digging into her neck now. “You don’t seem sick.”  
  
Fuck. Is it bad if she lies to him now? She probably shouldn’t make a habit out of lying to her best friend, but the real reason she’s decided to stay in bed today is definitely not gonna help make this less awkward.  
  
Fake it till you fucking make it. Rebeka turns around in his arms, locks her phone again and says, “Co—star told me I need to take it easy today.”  
  
If he notices she’s lying through her teeth, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he reaches for her and pulls her close again, which is honestly more casual affection than she can handle. She lets it happen because it would be weird to push him away, especially since she’s actually really enjoying this whole waking up with Valerio experience. Her head is pressed against his bare chest and she literally never wants to move again.  
  
“Let’s see what mine says,” he tells her, except he reaches for _her_ phone, not his. As previously established, he knows her passcode, so he unlocks it without issue, then opens co—star and only lingers on her daily quote shit for a second before he logs her out and logs in with his credentials. (Did he _see_ it said nothing about taking it easy?) When she punches him in the chest and jokes about him hacking her again, he grins. “My phone’s all the way across the hall. I don’t wanna get up.”  
  
He turns the screen so she can’t see it, then groans. “Not this shit again, it’s said this for the past three days.”  
  
Yeah, in her brief history of using the app, she’s learned that sometimes it’ll randomly put something on your Don’t list for several days; like last week, when the app didn’t think she should be wearing sneakers. (She did it anyway, because fuck the police, that’s why.)  
  
“What is it saying?”  
  
He sighs. “It says I shouldn’t _ignore signs —_ what the fuck does it mean by that?”  
  
Well, she can think of one thing he’s clearly ignoring. Currently, he’s running the hand that isn’t holding her phone up and down her hip, playing with the ends of her ratty old band t-shirt. Surely there’s a sign here somewhere that very obviously should be pointing towards him making a fucking move on her, right?  
  
“No clue,” she says, grinning at him. “Wanna grab breakfast somewhere? You’re off today, right?”  
  
That instantly seems to distract him from his bad horoscope or whatever you wanna call that atrocious app, because he sits up in bed and pulls on her arm until she sits up with him, placing her head on his shoulder.  
  
“Let’s go find these signs I’m apparently missing.”  
  
She doesn’t really mean to laugh.  
  
•••  
  
They grab breakfast, then stroll around downtown Madrid a little to hit up a few shops, and when he’s sitting across from her at their favorite little café, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t care about him missing the obvious signals she’s sending — maybe she needs to make a literal sign and hold it up.  
  
He glances at his phone, then rolls his eyes at it, as if whoever sent him something deserving of that trademark Montesinos eye roll can see.  
  
She knows him way too well. “What did Lu say?”  
  
“I sent her my co—star briefing and asked her what signs she thinks I’m ignoring. She called me ‘fucking dense as shit’, so I don’t think she knows either.”  
  
He really is fucking dense as shit — god, Lu has such a way with words — if he still isn’t getting it.  
  
But _her_ co—star said she shouldn’t get caught up in hypotheticals today, so she chuckles a little and goes back to drinking her coffee. She definitely doesn’t spend any more time glancing at Valerio and thinking about how easy it’d be to upgrade their close friendship to one that includes significantly less friendly activities. (Sex. She means sex. She _really_ wants to fuck him.)  
  
It’s totally not written in the stars for now; she’ll have to be patient.  
  
•••  
  
He’s back in her bed that night, and she refuses to be the one to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing.

“Just to make sure,” he says as he runs a hand down the length of her thigh. 

She has no idea what he’s making sure of, but she’s just gonna go with it for now.

(He comes back the next night, too... And the one after that, and... It’s apparent this is _their_ bed now.)

•••  
  
“Valerio, I swear to god, this has to be the dumbest one yet.”  
  
She only ever uses his full name when he’s being particularly stupid.  
  
Rebeka’s got her arms crossed in front of her chest as she stands in front of Valerio, who’s holding hair clippers in his hand, trying to get her to shave his head for him. There is no fucking way she will contribute to a situation in which his cute, bouncy curls are cut off; they’re her favorite thing about his appearance.  
  
He’d unceremoniously told her co—star thinks he should be spending time on DIY today, and next on the list was _haircut_ , hence him putting the pieces together and thinking the universe wants him to shave off all that beautiful hair. Not on her fucking watch.  
  
“Don’t ruin my karma,” he jokes, but he’s already put the dangerous device down on the sink again. “Not into bald men, huh?”  
  
She ignores the implication of her being into him at all — obviously she is, and they’ve definitely drunkenly told each other how attractive they think the other is — and shakes her head.  
  
“If you really want a haircut to satisfy some weird karma requirement, just shave your legs.”  
  
Leave it to Val to actually think that’s a sound idea. He turns around and grabs her razor from the shower caddy, then looks at her. “Do you mind?”  
  
Still better than shaving his fucking head. “Go for it.”

He bends down to pull his sweatpants up slightly, then tries to shave his dry calf, and really, she can’t just stand here and watch this.

“Let me,” she tells him, and he instantly hands over the razor and comes to stand in front of her. “Take your pants off.”

“I bet you say that to all the guys you meet in your bathroom.”

Hilarious. She rolls her eyes at him, then pulls on the waistband of his pants and lets it snap back against his hip. Valerio steps out of them obediently and turns to grin at her. “What now, boss?”

Now she’d like to be kissing him, preferably while she’s getting equally naked. She doesn’t tell him because she knows he doesn’t need the ego boost but it’s unfair how he basically looks like an underwear model.

She gets him to prop his leg up on the tub for her, puts some shaving cream on him, and helps ensure his legs are baby smooth. It’s kind of a weird experience because it feels intimate. Val looks a little too relaxed for someone not wearing pants while their leg is being worked on, and this angle gives her a great view of his crotch, which... Which she’s trying hard not to look at.

(She knows, of course, that her best friend is above average in _that_ department. They’ve been to the pool plenty of times, and he’s a big fan of speedos. She still doesn’t appreciate the reminder.)

“You’re good at that,” he says after she starts on his other leg, and all she can manage is a sly smile, or else she might whimper at the praise.

Not her fault he doesn’t know her kinks.

•••

They’re drunk when shit finally, irrevocably hits the fucking fan.

It’s Valentine’s Day, which is gross, and they’ve spent every Valentine's since they’ve known each other together, going for a nice dinner and then getting shitfaced. It’s one of her favorite traditions, even if it’s the one they get the most shit for from their friends. Hell, he was kind of dating Cayetana for a few weeks by the time V-Day came around last year and he still hung out with her instead — the blonde was fucking pissed. (Rebeka just remembers thinking how fucking hilarious the whole situation seemed.)

Dinner was just pizza on their couch this time because she had a shitty day at work and Valerio is accommodating, and now they’re at one of the more authentic (read: dingy and dirty) corner pubs in their neighborhood, in their usual booth, except they’re sitting next to each other. They do this sometimes; it’s easier to talk when you’re close. Pubs are loud.

She’s had three glasses of wine, and then two pints of the excellent (terrible) house lager, and Valerio has been sticking to whiskey and Coke all night. She’s pleasantly buzzed.

“What’s co—star saying about this monumental day?”

That’s a good question. She hasn’t even thought about the app in days, not since their little shaving adventure last weekend. She reaches for her phone, and Valerio puts an arm around her as she unlocks it.  
  
It’s been a welcome change, all the extra hugs and touches he’s been doling out ever since he decided he likes her bed better than his. The fact that he still hasn’t even kissed her is less welcome.

When the app loads, she instantly starts laughing. “ _Are you feeling accepting of your deeper desires?_ What the fuck are they talking about?”

Valerio doesn’t say anything for a minute, just pulls out his own phone and finds the app. She lets herself play with the bracelet on his wrist.

“Mine is similar. It says _‘Are you pretending you don’t have needs?’_ ”

She’s not sure she’d call that similar, but she cuddles closer to him regardless. Any reservations she’d normally have about being too affectionate tend to disappear after a couple of drinks.

Maybe she can just joke about this and it’ll all go away. “Tell me more about these needs.”

He snorts, then throws back the rest of his drink and turns to look at her. It’s a weird angle because she’s sort of half-tucked under his arm, but even like this she can tell he’s checking her out.

Is she seeing things? Maybe she shouldn’t have had beer after wine. Probably a bad omen.

“Stop staring at me, creep,” she teases, and to her surprise, he runs a hand through her long hair and pulls back before he leans in to kiss her. (Oh my god?) She’s so caught off guard that she doesn’t quite manage to kiss him back, and then his lips leave hers. When she opens her eyes there’s a small frown on his face.  
  
She allows herself a second to quietly freak out, and really, a second is all she can afford because he obviously needs her to do something if she doesn’t want this to turn into the single most awkward unrequited kissing encounter of her life. God, he looks so unsure, it’s fucking funny. She obviously wants to be kissing him.  
  
Grabbing his hand, she smirks at him, then says, “Stop pretending you don’t have needs, Val, _jeez_ ,” and leans in to kiss him again.  
  
This kiss is much better, mainly because she’s actually an active participant in it, and in no time, she’s straddling his lap, which is really pushing it in terms of PDA. She likes ‘their’ dirty, shitty pub; if they take this further she’ll never be able to come back here.  
  
She pulls away and he chases her lips, which feels a little too good to be true. Major fucking ego boost.  
  
“Let’s go,” he says, pushing at her shoulder until she slides out of the booth. He grabs some cash and leaves it on the table to settle their tab, and if she did the math right it’s at least a ten euro tip, but this hardly seems like the time to mention it.  
  
When she’s naked and in his lap twenty minutes later, she still her hips and grins at him. “This isn’t just because co—star told you to fuck your very attractive roommate, right?”  
  
Val shakes his head, then pulls her forward until they’re chest to chest. “Co—star told me not to panic, and this is how I’m doing it.”  
  
She’s pretty sure that’s his way of admitting he actually likes her, or whatever, so she giggles like a lovestruck fool (since when does she _giggle_?) and kisses him again.  
  
She’ll blame co—star for this, too.  
  
•••  
  
Lu is the first person they tell, because she has a weird sixth sense for these things and chances are she would’ve caught them in the act sooner rather than later.  
  
“You finally made a move?” Lu asks Rebeka, who’s currently busy removing Valerio’s hand from her thigh. She doesn’t need the distraction.  
  
They’re at one of the hip bars uptown Lu likes to go to. It isn’t really Rebe’s scene, and it definitely isn’t Val’s.  
  
Valerio grins at his sister. “Why are you assuming she’s the one who made a move?”  
  
“Because you’re dumb as fuck, Val,” she rolls her eyes at him. “You’ve literally wanted to date her for the past, what, two years?”  
  
Rebeka elbows him in the ribs and turns to grin at him. “Is that true?”  
  
Valerio actually blushes — that’s new — and rolls his eyes like he hates being outnumbered like this.  
  
“Don’t act like you aren’t also pathetic,” Lu tells her, and fine, maybe she can’t be too smug about any of this — she probably never would’ve made a move. “You’re both fucking stupid.”  
  
Well, she’ll gladly accept her fate and be labeled as stupid if it means she gets to keep her hot new boyfriend. That’s still surreal to think about, so she grins at Lu and shrugs.  
  
Lu turns to Valerio. “Can you please delete that fucking app now, Val? I think you’ve caused enough damage.”  
  
“Hey, no way! Co—star is the only reason I have a girlfriend now.”  
  
Rebe smacks him in the head lightly, then sighs. “Your sister is right. You really are dumb as fuck.”  
  
“And yet you’re dating me.”  
  
“Don’t test me.”  
  
Lu makes a gagging motion, and Rebeka rolls her eyes at her as she steals a sip of Val’s beer.  
  
“Don’t be such a Gemini,” she tells Lu. Valerio snorts, then holds his hand up for a high five and she slaps his palm with hers.  
  
“You know, it says a lot about him that you’re somehow the most tolerable girlfriend he’s ever introduced me to.”  
  
Valerio grins at Lu, and Rebe sits back to watch this exchange. She kind of loves it when they have these little sibling arguments; it always leaves her feeling grateful for her mother’s lack of interest in having any more kids after her.  
  
“I should’ve known the key to getting you to like my girlfriends was to just fuck one of your friends.”  
  
Now it’s Rebeka’s turn to be high-fived by Val. He grins at her, then takes her hand in his, and yeah, the giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach isn’t gonna wear off anytime soon.  
  
Even if her horoscope disagrees.  
  



	3. she's got a trick or two to teach me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting stuck driving out of town in the snow with the girl he has a crush on isn't ideal, but at least she's just broken up with her boyfriend, so they have something to talk about.
> 
> Rated T-ish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> definitely didn't have this sitting in my drafts since August or anything... no....

  
Turns out it snows in Madrid now. Climate change is fucking weird.

He’s driving Rebeka’s Volvo, and he’s really just kind of hoping the snow will stop soon.

“Valerio,” Rebeka says again, because he ignored her last three attempts at getting him to pull over and let her drive. “Please. You can barely drive when there aren’t fucktons of snow coming down.”

“Calm down, it’s just a bit of frozen water.”

The weather is getting worse out, but they’re only an hour away from the wine-tasting venue now, and it’d be pretty great if they made it there somehow. It’s a Friday, and they booked a hotel to stay overnight, so worst case they’ll just stay an extra night, if the snow is too bad for them to drive back tomorrow.

He’s pretty stoked she agreed to come along, actually. He wasn’t even going to ask her at first, but then they were out for a drink with Ander and Omar last week and he mentioned he got invited to some bougie vineyard tour and... Rebeka loves free booze, apparently. He probably should’ve just asked her, but Valerio is kind of terrible at hitting on women he likes, especially when they’re his friend.

This weekend is gonna be great. They haven’t exactly spent a lot of time together lately. Before she and Samu broke up (again) three weeks ago, she was kind of his built in apartment BFF. Whenever she came over to see her boyfriend, he happened to be around, because he, you know, lives with the guy. She was at the apartment a lot, which was fun most of the time, and a little less fun when he realized how incredibly thin the walls of the apartment actually are but... It is what it is.

Now they’ve been driving for an hour and chances are they’ll never make it out of here alive. He’s kidding. They’re gonna be fine. It’s just fun to watch her panic.

“Just let me drive.”

He laughs. “Nope.”

“Come on, unlike you I actually _like_ my car. Don’t crash it.”

He makes a little game out of having her beg him to pull the car over, then finally takes the next exit off the highway when he spots a roadside McDonald’s, and before he gets out of the car, he says, “You’re paying for food, though.”

Rebeka instantly punches his shoulder, but she’s nodding like that’s a trade-off she’s willing to make.

“You do not get to dip your fries into my ice cream again,” she warns when she comes back with a large bag of food. “Last time it tasted so gross after.”

Petulantly, he thinks about how she should’ve told him that before he decided not to get his _own_ ice cream. He dips a fry into it when she isn’t looking and her eyes are on the road, watching the snow pile up higher.

“Can you eat a little faster? I wanna get going.”

He grins at her. “You’re in the driver's seat. You could just drive...”

For a moment Rebe looks like she actually hadn’t considered that, then begrudgingly hands him the rest of her McFlurry and rolls her eyes when he instantly starts dipping his fries in.

“You’re fucking disgusting,” she says as she starts the car. “This wine tonight better be good.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he has a feeling a night spent with her can’t be bad. The quality of wine hardly matters.

**

Half an hour later, the snow has gotten so bad, traffic has pretty much halted on the highway. The windshield wipers are barely even working anymore, and Val is starting to feel a little claustrophobic, actually. All of the windows are covered in snow. It’s… suffocating.  
  
This is as good a time as any to figure out why the hell Rebeka has been acting weird around him.  
  
"So why are you so pissed at me?"

She laughs and looks over at him. "I'm not pissed."

“You’ve been avoiding me.

“I have _not_.”  
  
That’s bullshit. He’s literally seen her twice since the breakup. Maybe that’s because she obviously isn’t going to just come over and hang out at her ex’ apartment, but still. She could’ve texted. They could’ve met on, you know, neutral grounds or whatever.

He gives her a look and she sighs, then goes to speak again. "I just sort of assumed that since Samuel is your friend and roommate, he'd get you in the breakup."

He laughs a little. "He'd _get_ me?”  
  
“You know, like… You’d take his side, or whatever,” she trails off, clearly trying for nonchalant. He thinks that’s a pretty stupid thing to say; as far as he’s concerned, their breakup was long overdue. He probably knew before either of them, because their bedrooms share a wall, and chances are if the sex stops being good, the relationship has run its course.

If he was gonna take anyone’s side, it would be hers. No one has asked him to take sides, though.  
  
“Don’t be stupid,” he says, fixing his eyes back on the road, which he can now barely see through the snow covering the entire windshield. The rest of the drive is gonna be fun.

She turns up the stereo, streams what he’s pretty sure must be Avril Lavigne’s greatest hits, and he laughs when she scream-sings the entire chorus of Girlfriend right at him.

He’s pretty sure the concept of music peaked with Avril.

**

They come to a complete stop five minutes later. Driving is dangerous when you literally can’t see what’s right in front of you, and even though it’s early afternoon and not dark out yet, the whole thing feels a little spooky.

“Fuck,” Rebe says, flicking on the hazard lights. “The one day a year where I decide to drive outside of the city and of course this happens.”

He shrugs. Staying out for a little while isn’t gonna kill them, so he mostly thinks the whole thing is amusing.

They’re quiet for a moment, which feels awkward now that the radio is off, and then she lets out a laugh.

“God, this is straight out of every clichéd chick flick ever,” she says, grinning at him. Does that make him the unexpected romantic lead vying for her attention? He fucking hopes so. “How long until you say something about using body heat to stay warm?”

She definitely knows him too well. “I was gonna give it another five to ten minutes, depending on when you start to shiver.”

Rebeka groans. “I’m gonna go out there and see what’s going on.”

That sounds like a terrible idea. The other cars around them are probably also stopped, but walking on the highway still seems reckless and irresponsible.

“Let me go.”

They both end up freezing, and wet, and covered in a mix of melted snow and ice a minute later because Rebeka refused to let him get out alone, and he slips into the back seat without a second thought, motioning for her to join him.

There’s no way any car around them will be moving for at least another hour or so.

“Well, this is inconvenient,” she says, shivering, then rolls her eyes at him when he smirks at her in response. “So you’re saying it’s time for body heat, huh?”

Instead of answering her, he engulfs her in an awkward side hug, which is kind of the best he can do considering the limited space in the back of the car. He’s always been pretty convinced that movies and television make car sex sound a lot more appealing than it actually is, and this definitely proves it. There’s absolutely no room to move around; if a hug is this awkward, he doesn’t wanna think about anything else.

“I’m hungry,” Rebeka mumbles against his neck and he pets her hair in mock comfort.

“We literally ate half an hour ago.”

“So?”

“ _So_ I think you can wait a little before you start complaining about starving to death.”

All she does in response is pout, and then she’s buried her face against his neck. He still isn’t sure what the hell is going on, but he’s not gonna push her away if she wants to cuddle. He’s all for that.

Her phone lights up with a text from Samuel, asking about the snow, and he almost rolls his eyes. Everyone knows staying friends with exes only works if you give each other space first. Rebe hides her phone in her jeans pocket and sighs.

“Why’d you two break up?”

Rebeka shrugs. He can’t help but notice she’s looking anywhere but at him. “We were a pretty bad match, I just finally decided to actually end it.”

Begrudgingly, he says, “You weren’t _that_ bad together,” because it’s mostly true. At least they always seemed pretty okay. Never super happy, but not outright terrible. All he’s saying is he’s seen _more_ incompatible people date for a lot longer.

She actually sits back so she can stare at him, as if what he said was some sort of shocking revelation.

“Nah,” she starts, running a hand through her hair, which is a little damp from the melted snow. “We were pretty bad. I just kind of thought... I don’t know, maybe I’m just jaded enough to think not being alone makes dating someone I don’t click with worth it.”

He does not mean to make a sex joke; it just happens. “I didn’t think _clicking_ was your problem. You always sounded pretty satisfied.”

Rebeka grins at him, then grabs his chin between her fingers and looks him straight in the eye. “You fucking perv. Did you get off on listening to us?”

Whoa, talk about a sexually charged question. He didn’t, for the record. It felt too creepy, and while he’s obviously pretty into Rebeka, he didn’t take any joy in picturing her with Samu, of all people. No offense to the guy; he and Valerio are obviously friends, but that doesn’t mean he’s his type. So no, hearing them hook up next door was not pleasant whatsoever. All it did is make him wish he was the one making her moan like that.

“Definitely not.”

She eyes him suspiciously, almost looks disappointed for a second, and he chalks that up to the weird situation they’re in.

This is gonna be fun.

**  
  
Rebeka is asleep with her head in his lap when he first notices the honking.

He was kind of bored before, just watching her sleep because there was nothing else to do, but the loud noise instantly makes him sit up straighter. Rebe groans when she feels him move, and he considers just carefully slipping out from under her and letting her sleep, but that doesn’t sound safe in a moving car.  
  
Shocking, honestly, to think he just had a responsible thought like that.

“Wake up,” he tells her, pushing at her shoulder. “I think the snow stopped.”

“No,” she whines, but then she’s sitting up anyway, yawning as she stretches. It’s the wrong time to think it, but she looks fucking adorable like this.

He removes his arm from where it was resting on her shoulder and ignores how he brushes her hoodie-clad cleavage in the process. It’s not a big deal. He needs to get a grip.

“I’ll drive.”

That finally seems to do the trick, and before he can say anything else, she’s opening the door to move back into the drivers seat. For someone who always acts like they couldn’t care less, she’s a bit of a control freak.

Traffic starts up again slowly, and once they get the windshield cleared, it’s obvious the snow has let up just a little.

“What did you mean earlier?” she asks when they’re finally taking the right exit off the highway, the hotel within reach. He has no clue what the hell she’s talking about, so he just keeps his eyes facing forward. “When you said I was being stupid.”

 _That’s_ what she found odd? Not the fact that he basically admitted to listening to her and her ex-boyfriend have sex multiple times?

“Nothing.”

Rebeka snorts. “Liar.”

Maybe he’s lying a little, but he’s really only doing it to save this whole conversation from getting weird. There’s no way the truth would make any of this better.

“Fuck off,” he says, grins at her, and changes the subject. He needs to find the booking confirmation for their hotel.

It’s a charming, small-town venue and the old lady working the reception is adorable, fussing over how they possibly made the drive up here in the snow.

When she finally hands over the room key and wishes them a nice evening, it’s after she’s repeatedly referred to Rebeka as his girlfriend and told him about different _romantic_ spots around town to take her to. They’d both just kind of grinned at each other at that, because there’s no point correcting strangers on things like this.

The whole hotel is adorable, honestly. It’s seen better days, but it’s old and charming in ways a four star airport Marriott isn’t, so he loves it. Even the key is kind of old, the handle decorated with elaborate copper engraving.

Their room is small but perfectly fine for the night, and Rebeka falls back on the king-sized bed and grins at him when he closes the door with a thud.

“You know we can totally afford two rooms, right? You have a job and my mom’s, like, a very generous lady.”

He lies down next to her and ruffles her hair until he’s satisfied with the messy state it’s in.

“I don’t like staying in hotel rooms by myself.”

The whole point of staying at hotels with friends is turning it into a more heightened stakes, elaborate sleepover, and if you sleep in separate rooms that vibe is just gone. He didn’t even do this to hit on her; he just genuinely thinks sleeping in a hotel room by himself is a waste.

“You’re so fucking weird,” she says, then turns onto her side so she can properly look at him. “Fine, but I’m taking the left side of the bed and I call dibs on first shower in the morning.”

It speaks to the severity of his embarrassingly pathetic crush on her that her saying the word shower makes him picture her naked, which in turn makes him think about how he’ll have to sleep next to her all night without making a move on her, and all of this suddenly seems unwise. He should’ve thought this through better.

Of course, he _wants_ to make a move on her, but the breakup is still too recent, and the last thing he wants is to be her rebound.

Instead of voicing any of that, he giggles and pets her stomach. “You’ll be too hungover to want to shower first tomorrow.”

He can practically hear the smirk in her voice when she says, “Bring it on.”

Sometimes he thinks she’s almost as weird as he is.

**

He does a literal double take when she walks out of the bathroom in this super hot, simple little black dress. It’s got an open back, but it’s not open enough to be tacky. It’s the kind of dress he’d expect to see Carla in, or maybe Lu, but not Rebeka.

She’s just smirking at him when he finally recovers from the shock and tells her she looks nice. (That’s an understatement.)

“Thought I’d try and fit in with the winery crowd.”

Then she reaches down to grab a pair of heels from her tiny suitcase, sits down on the bed and slips them on, and he’s still just standing there staring. He’s had a lot of fantasies and dreams about her, but this specific scenario hadn’t even crossed his mind yet. He’s definitely… intrigued now.

Fuck, it’s unfair how pretty she is. Her hair is pulled off her face in a simple, tidy bun and she’s wearing a nice pair of plain small silver hoop earrings. He’s pretty sure her makeup is simpler, too; she just looks really fucking classy somehow. How the fuck did she manage to pull this look off when she looks equally amazing in her usual grungy rocker princess get up? Maybe he’s more into her than he thought.

“Aren’t you gonna tell me I look nice, too?”

He’s in simple black pants and a white button-down, nothing particularly extravagant because like her, he also figured fitting in at this sort of thing is probably the goal. They’re already going to be the youngest people in the room; there’s no need to draw attention to it.

Rebeka gets up and takes two steps towards him, then straightens the collar of his shirt for him. All he can think about is how they’re almost the same height now that she’s wearing heels. She pats his shoulder, then leans in to kiss his cheek and he knows he must look confused because she’s grinning at him after.

“You look hot,” she confirms, not that he needed her to. “Can we go now?”

Right. Wine will probably help him feel less... tense.

**

They’re the youngest people in the room by at least ten years, and everyone else seems to either know each other, or act like they do. It doesn’t help that they're surrounded by older married couples, and the second they come to sit on the chairs spread around the large wooden table, Rebeka takes his hand in hers like she wants to make sure they don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

He isn’t going to complain about getting to hold her hand.

The older owner of the vineyard talks them through the different tastes they’ll be _exploring_ today, and Rebeka bites her lip to stifle a laugh, something he only notices because he can’t stop staring at her.

When she leans over to whisper in his ear, he moves closer. “Is this a wine tasting or a sex party? He definitely just told us we’ll be _tasting our darkest desires_.”

It’s his turn to hide his obvious _desire_ to laugh. He covers the giggle threatening to escape his mouth up with a cough and squeezes her hand.

The first few wines are poured, then consumed, and Rebe stopped making eye contact with him several minutes ago because otherwise, they’ll actually break into a fit of giggles, which is clearly not an approved way to conduct yourself at this sort of event. He isn’t really here on business, though a friend in the industry got him on the guest list; leaving a bad impression is probably not the best idea.

When they’ve successfully tasted three different Riojas, Rebeka actually bullshits their host about the nuance in the grape and the guy looks pleased with her input as he agrees with her. Valerio grips her hand so tight, she must be in actual pain. It’s fucking hilarious, seeing her like this.

“You’d make a great trophy wife at dinner parties,” he tells her when the conversation moves on, and she looks like she wants to roll her eyes but thinks better of it. She reaches up to brush a stray curl out of his eyes, then grins when his eyes narrow. Clever.

Things sort of spiral from there. Rebeka gets more obnoxiously and perhaps unironically into naming flavors in the wine they’re tasting as the night progresses, and Valerio is exceedingly aware of just how bad his crush on her actually is. The more ridiculous shit she makes up, the more impressed he is, and he wishes he could high-five her without getting weird looks from the other guests.

It doesn’t help that he’s feeling more drunk and uninhibited by the second. They’re told to blindfold one another for a blind taste test — only emphasizing the weird sex party vibes Rebe pointed out earlier — and he’s just naming random fruits he can think of to make her laugh. He feels her hand brush his ear, which must mean she’s about to take the blindfold off, but instead, he hears her whisper, “Play along,” and then she’s kissing him.

Wait, _why_ is she kissing him? He has no clue what’s going on, and it’s a chaste kiss, so it must be for appearances. There isn’t much he can do in his current state of blindfolded, tipsy confusion, so he kisses her back for a second and waits for her to pull away again. When she does, she takes the blindfold off and grins and him, and he pulls her close for a fake hug so they can talk.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Sorry, that bitch in the red dress was eyeing you.”

He looks over at the woman in question and chuckles, then brushes a hand over Rebeka’s arm.

“Rebe, she’s in her 60s and here with her husband.”

“Yeah, well, still.”

“Are you...” He wants to say jealous, but no. “... drunk?”

Instead of answering his question, she hands him the blindfold and says, “Come on, tie me up,” and he chokes on air when her words register. _So_ not the sort of mental picture he needed.

Not much later, the formal tasting part of the night is finally over, and they’re trying to mingle, each clutching a glass of the Pinot Grigio they decided was the nicest wine on offer tonight. Rebeka is currently telling these strangers about how she grew up around wine, even makes up some fake vineyard location in a remote mountain range, and he’s in awe. She’s literally a completely different person right now; it’s kind of hot to watch.

“I’m channeling your sister,” she jokes when the couple they were talking to walk away for a refill. “I didn’t realize fake smalltalk could be so fun.”

He uses the brief moment alone to lean over for a quick kiss, then tells her she’s fucking crazy, and she beams at him and just says, “Thanks, babe.”

They’re both pretending. There’s nothing wrong with a little acting.

He finally convinces her to just leave half an hour later, and she ends up exchanging cheek kisses and phone numbers with this woman in her 40s as she says, “Margaret, it was such a pleasure to run into you tonight.”  
  
It’s like she’s a whole different person or something.

She’s fucking amazing at networking, apparently, even while she’s acting completely unlike herself. Valerio is literally in awe of her. The vineyard has a driver on call to take them back to the hotel, because small towns like this one don’t have taxis, and Rebeka chats with the driver on the short ride over, all the while not letting go of Valerio’s hand.

He’s this close to just kissing her when they’re standing in the elevator on their way up to their room. He could, too. Rebe’s cheeks are slightly flushed, probably from the cold and the wine, and some of her hair has started to come loose around her face. He reaches up to brush a strand of it behind her ear, and when their eyes meet, she looks incredibly turned on.

He didn’t think she could get any hotter, but seeing that look in her eyes instantly makes him want to rip her stupid fucking dress off of her. It looks great on, but he’s got a feeling he’ll appreciate it a lot more once it’s pooling at her feet. Fuck.

The elevator comes to a halt on their floor, and she grabs him by the hand and pulls him after her. She’s the one with a purse, so she gets out the room key, unlocks the door and instantly pushes him back against it once it’s closed.

Ideally, he’d kind of like to talk this through before they hook up, but he’s feeling a little too tipsy and a lot too turned on to focus on that. Rebe is looking at him like she’s trying to figure out her next move, her hand pressed against his chest.

When she takes too long to make up her mind, he grabs her by the neck and grins at her.

“What, do you need a blindfold to kiss me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you kink-shaming me before I’ve even told you what they are?”

Fine then. Talking is probably overrated at this point. He kisses her, for real this time, no holding back. Manners be damned. She’s so fucking responsive to his touch, he wants to never kiss anyone else again if this is what it can be like.

When she pulls away he’s lost for a second, but then she turns around and says, “Unzip me,” and he catches on, just drags the zipper down her back and watches as she lets the fabric fall to the floor.

Yeah, okay, the dress looked nice on, but he definitely likes it better off. She’s only wearing a pair of black underwear, her abs are a sight to behold, and when his eyes trail higher, he actually thinks he might be salivating a little at the sight of her perfect fucking cleavage.

He doesn’t think about how terrible of an idea all this actually could turn out to have been until after, when Rebeka is asleep next to him and he’s still a little too tipsy to outright worry. If this was just a one-time thing for her because she needed someone to use as a rebound, he’ll find a way to live with it.  
  
For the first time in a while, he dreams of nothing.

**

Valerio wakes up to something slapping him in the face, and when he opens his eyes he sees it’s a towel. She’s actually the most ridiculous person he knows. When he moves the white cotton fabric, he sees her sitting on the other side of the bed wearing absolutely nothing, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s smiling, and apparently not actually planning on forgetting last night ever happened, judging by the lack of clothes.

“Told you I’d shower first,” she says, then moves closer so she can lean over to kiss him. “You sleep like a dead person.”

He’s usually a pretty light sleeper, but last night took a lot out of him. The exorbitant amounts of wine probably didn’t help. He still feels tired, even now.

Stretching his arms above his head, he asks, “What time is it?”

“There’s a naked girl in your bed and all you care about is the time?”

Fucking brat. He pulls her into his lap, kisses her again, and decides this probably isn’t the right time to talk about anything. It’s definitely still too early.  
  
They’re in the car on their way back home, and she’s letting him drive since most of the snow has melted. He doesn’t want to confront her and ask her what the fuck happened last night, but he kind of thinks he should.  
  
He’s just pulled onto the highway when he tries to bring it up. She can’t run away from him now, right? The car is the best place to have this conversation.  
  
“So,” he starts, and she turns up the music in response, shaking her head. He chuckles. “Really? Very mature.”  
  
“Listen,” she screams over the beat of whatever song this is; some sort of synth-pop bullshit. “If we wait to talk about this for another hour, we get to skip a whole sixty minutes of awkwardness.”  
  
That makes him laugh, but he also thinks her avoidance technique is kind of flawed, now that she’s said it out loud. He reaches over to turn the music down, then looks at her and smiles when she sighs.  
  
“So, I like you,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road because it’s the responsible thing to do, not because he’s scared of her reaction. Definitely not because of that. “For the record.”  
  
He finally glances over at her and finds her looking back at him, a small smile on her face.  
  
“So do I.”  
  
“Well thank god.”  
  
He’s so fucking relieved, and he knows it must show in the way he’s grinning now, trying to keep his eyes facing forward even though he kind of wants to lean over and touch her instead.  
  
Then she asks, “We don’t need to make things weird, right?” and he actually laughs out loud. He didn’t think there was anyone else out there who’s as bad at having scary conversations as he is.  
  
But they really don’t. There’s no need to make a big deal out of anything. As long as she isn’t going to make him hide this from their friends, he’ll be fine.  
  
**  
  
“Maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone.”  
  
Okay, so she’s making things weird. They’re in his bed, naked, and it’s been just over a week since their road trip.  
  
He bites down on her collarbone and waits for her to breathe out his name before he pulls away and grins at her. “So _that’s_ why you asked if Samu was home.”  
  
“I mean… We can tell people, but maybe not _him_.”  
  
He gets where she’s coming from, but there’s no way they’re gonna be able to keep this from Samuel. They live together, and unless Rebeka randomly decides she’d rather invite him over to her house going forward, there’s no getting around telling Samu. Val has a feeling she probably wouldn’t want to parade him around in front of her mother.  
  
He’s just being realistic, alright? This isn't even about wanting to rub the fact that he’s sleeping with Samu’s ex in his face. Valerio isn’t the kind of alpha male who enjoys that sort of thing. He actually _likes_ living here; they need to tell Samu for that reason alone, or else his roommate is definitely going to be pissed.  
  
“Let’s take a nap,” he says, pulling her closer. They don’t need to talk about any of this right now; hazy Sunday afternoon naps are the best.  
  
When he slowly wakes up later, she’s gone, and he stretches a little as he gets up and slips on a pair of sweats. One thing he’s learned from living with someone else is you can never just walk around naked; someone might be home.  
  
There’s noise coming from the kitchen, and he can see the light is on, so he walks in and nearly fucking bursts out laughing when he sees Rebe leaning against the kitchen counter, a glass of water in hand, as she awkwardly talks to Samu, who’s sitting at the dining table with a bowl of cereal.  
  
They both look over at Val when they hear him walk in, and he waves, then walks over and steals Rebeka’s glass of water from her. He winks at her when Samu isn’t looking, and yeah, apparently the cat’s out of the bag now.   
  
Rebeka looks mildly panicked, which is kind of cute, so he tugs her (his) shirt down a little and pecks her lips.   
  
At least she had the good sense of putting on a shirt before walking out of his room.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


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